Exodus - Leon Uris [170]
The Yishuv had presented a solid front, except for the dissenting Maccabees. Avidan decided to swallow his pride and through a chain of underground contacts asked for a meeting with Akiva.
The two men met in a cellar beneath Frankel’s Restaurant on King George Road in Jerusalem. It was filled with cases of canned food and bottled goods stacked halfway to the ceiling, and it was dark except for the light from a single light bulb.
Avidan offered no handshake as Akiva entered, flanked by two Maccabees. It had been five long years since the two men had seen each other.
Akiva looked in his sixties and more. The long hard years of building two kibbutzim and the more recent years of underground living had turned him into an old man.
The room was cleared of Maccabee and Haganah guards. The two men faced each other.
At last Avidan spoke. “I have come, quite simply, to ask you to call a truce with the British until the war is over.”
Akiva grunted. He spat out his contempt for the British and their White Paper and his anger at the Yishuv Central and Haganah for their failure to fight.
“Please, Akiva,” Avidan said, holding his temper. “I am aware of all your feelings. I know exactly what differences there are between us. Despite them, Germany is a far greater enemy and threat to our existence than the British.”
Akiva turned his back on Avidan. He stood in the shadows thinking. Suddenly he spun around and his eyes blazed as of old. “Now is the time to get the British to revoke the White Paper! Now—right now—declare our statehood on both sides of the Jordan! Now! Hit the damned British when they’re down!”
“Is statehood so important to us that we must gain it by contributing to a German victory?”
“And do you think the British will hesitate to sell us down the river again?”
“I think we have only one choice—to fight Germany.”
Akiva paced the cement floor like a nervous cat. Tears of anger welled up in his eyes. He grunted and mumbled to himself—and at last he spoke with trembling softness. “Even as the British blockade our coast against desperate people ... even as the British create a ghetto inside their army with our boys ... even as they have sold us out with the White Paper ... even as the Yishuv puts its heart and soul into the war effort while the Arabs sit like vultures waiting to pounce ... even with all this the British are the lesser of our enemies and we must fight with them. Very well, Avidan ... the Maccabees will call a truce.”
The air was filled with Akiva’s hostility as the two men finally shook hands. Akiva wet his lips. “How is my brother?”
“Barak just returned from conferences in London.”
“Yes ... conferences ... that would be Barak. And Sarah and the children?”
Avidan nodded. “You can be proud of Ari.”
“Oh yes, Ari is a fine boy ... a fine boy ... how ... how ... does Ein Or look these days?”
Avidan lowered his eyes. “Ein Or and Shoshanna show the love and the sweat of the men who built them.” Avidan turned and walked toward the ladder to the trap door.
“Zion shall be redeemed with judgment,” Akiva cried from the shadows of the cellar, “and the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed. Our day with the British will come!”
Ari had changed. He was melancholy all the time. It was difficult to say exactly what had been the breaking point for him. He had carried arms since he was a boy. The “tower and stockade” days—Ha Mishmar—the Raider Unit—the Acre prison. The heartbreaking work for Aliyah Bet in Berlin. And the death of Dafna. Ari lived at Yad El and farmed and wanted to be left alone. He scarcely spoke a word.
Even when the war broke out Ari remained at Yad El. Most of his spare time was spent at the Arab Village of Abu Yesha with his boyhood friend, Taha, who was now the muktar.